


Of Iron, Graphene & Memes

by CinnamonCinnabar



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: A little angst, Absolutely no Barn Syndrome, Actual good decisions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ass-Kicking, BAMF Peridot, Crack Treated Seriously, English is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes, Gen, Greg is a good dad, Hurt/Comfort, I do not agree with the show's decision to forgive the Diamonds, I do not like Lapis at all, I'm so going to take full advantage of the show forgetting that the Cluster was an urgent matter, Iron Man suits - Freeform, Making use of Peridot's intelligence, Not Beta Read, Not Lapis Lazuli friendly, Not very Rose friendly, Peridot swears a lot, Peridot's powers, Seemingly weak powers used smartly, Set after Log Date 7 15 2, So I'm not going to do it, Steven grows up, Strong Peridot, Strong Peridot & Crystal Gems friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonCinnabar/pseuds/CinnamonCinnabar
Summary: Peridot is a weak gem with seemingly no powers at all, but one thing she undeniably has is intelligence. That, and a great dose of determination, which she puts to good use when she decides to build herself some things out of admiration for a fictional character. An easy task? Most certainly not. She also fixes more than she ever expected to. Well, Homeworld did make her to fix stuff. Really, It all started when Steven told Peridot about the internet.Or: Peridots discovers Marvel, builds an AI or two and a bunch of Iron Man suits (among other things), and accidentally becomes the strongest being in the entire universe.





	Of Iron, Graphene & Memes

**Author's Note:**

> Heya there, hope you like this fic!
> 
> Just a quick warning, there will be SPOILERS. So if you haven't watched the latest episodes (even though most things from them I won't use for a while, and some I won't use at all) and you don't want to get spoilers, I highly suggest you watch them.

It all started when Steven told Peridot about the internet. 

Peridot had started to tinker with human technology the moment she was alone at the barn, learning how some things worked by trying to fix some of the broken machines (which she had yet to learn the names of) that were lying around her new home. At first, her progress had been — quite understandably — substandard, as Earth's technology was so archaic when compared to Homeworld's. However, she was becoming better at an astonishing rate. 

Unlike the first conclusion she reached in an attempt to explain to herself why she was even doing this in the first place, this had nothing to do with the drill. It had to do with necessity. She had been a Homeworld technician for her whole life, and working with technology was something she enjoyed, even now. With everything in her life changing so quickly, technology was the one thing she still had, even if it wasn't exactly what she was used to. 

One day, Steven came to the barn to show her some "cool Earth stuff", whatever that is. He brought his phone with him, which quickly got Peridot's interest. She wasn't interested in the phone itself, as for her it was a pretty primitive communication device. No, what she wanted to know more about was the globally connected network system that was apparently called "The Internet", according to Steven. Because she was entirely sure that Homeworld didn't have anything like that (of course, there was a communication system, but it was for colony and Homeworld related purposes only). So she asked him about it. 

And he explained the best as he could, even going so far as to lend his cellphone to her to show what was available on the internet. And it had so many things that Peridot was flabbergasted. She wanted it. That's why when Steven went home (but not before promising to come back) she turned on a computer she found earlier — that most certainly was still functional, and she had no idea why it was there. Perhaps it's an obsolete model? And built a device capable of transmitting Wi-Fi using a lawnmower and a parabolic antenna. It functioned perfectly once she turned it on outside. 

Almost perfectly. The fluctuation of the Wi-Fi quality when the thing moved to far away land was really annoying. And that one time the machine decided that roaming in the corn field was a swell idea was troublesome. Yeah, she really should take off its wheels. 

All hooked up, it was time to "google stuff" (another thing said by Steven) . She started out by searching normal things, like this "programming" thing that had caught her interest, how human bodies worked (she was pretty traumatized by what she found), among other things. However, this is the internet we're talking about, and weird things started appearing on Peridot's screen. Very, very weird things. Things that she absolutely _did not want to talk about, thank you very much._

With powerful search engines — some better than others — at her disposal, she quickly learned a lot about things that exist on Earth. One of the things that kept reappearing, no matter how many times she tried to ignore it, was something called "Marvel". _The hell is a Marvel? And why on Homeworld are some humans so obsessed with it?_ Peridot then decided to watch the movies (she even found a site detailing the order of the movies from a thematic and chronological perspective!). 

She decided to start with Captain America. She did not like it. The protagonist was a complete _clod_ , and she could write a very long essay to explain _exactly_ why. But to do that she needed more material to work with, which meant watching more movies. Which was exactly what she decided to do. The next movie on the list was Captain Marvel. That one was way better. If only she could get herself a Flerken... 

Then, it was time to watch Iron Man. And she did. And she did it again. And again. And again. And twenty five more times after that. She watched it so many times that she memorized half of the dialogue of the entire movie (And every time Tony Stark said "I am Iron Man" at the end of the movie, she said it too). And then she decided to build some of what she had seen in the movie for herself. After all, how hard could it possibly be to build an artificial intelligence capable of learning and acting independently without proper equipment or money to get said equipment? 

Turns out, very hard. She quickly found out that her computer was not suited at all for that kind of thing. It was too slow, didn't have nearly enough memory available, and had a myriad of other problems. The barn didn't have a lot of mechanical parts lying around, but it did have the robots Peridot and Pearl built… 

And thus, with her knowledge of both Homeworld and (some of) Earth technology, some parts she got by dissecting some robots, a pickup truck and some broken appliances (but not the recorder Steven had given her, it was a very thoughtful gift, and she liked it very much. And she totally did not use it to record Tony Stark saying "I am Iron Man"), Peridot began her self-imposed mission to build a super computer, better than any human has ever seen. Of course, those random parts alone wouldn't do. So she decided to "borrow" some parts from the broken old gem ships that were left on Earth — one of the biggest middle finger she could give to Homeworld, period. 

The green gem knew that taking multiple trips to carry whatever she took was incredibly inefficient, so she decided to ask a Crystal Gem for help. Her choice was, surprisingly, Pearl. Not only she knew a lot about ancient gem technology, but she had the ever useful ability to store objects within her gem. Peridot grabbed her beloved tool belt and ran out of the barn. 

Using the warp pad near her new home, she teleported to the Crystal Temple. As she looked around looking for any of the Crystal Gems, she failed to notice Amethyst sneaking behind her. When Peridot felt someone poking her back, she jumped, startled. 

"Heya there P-Dot." said the quartz, with a shit eating grin, as if she didn't give Peridot a metaphorical heart attack just a second ago. "Whatcha doing here? Wait… Is this something to do with the Cluster?! Holy smokes, is the Earth gonna break in hal-" 

"No! The Cluster is behaving as expected." Peridot tried to reassure the other gem. "There is something I need… Pearl's assistance with." 

Amethyst was surprised, as not too long ago she did not bother to hide her disdain for Pearl. Huh, the whole robot fiasco must have changed Peridot's opinion more than she initially thought. 

"Sure, let me call P here for you." She walked over to the door behind the warp pad, opened it, and yelled louder than Peridot could ever imagine. "HEY PEARL, PERIDOT IS HERE LOOKING FOR YOU! SAYS SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP WITH SOMETHING!" 

After a moment, Pearl shows up, looking quite disheveled. 

"Honestly, Amethyst, must you be so loud? I almost dropped one of my swords down the waterfall!" She paused, finally actually realizing why Amethyst called her in the first place. "What do you you need help with, Peridot? Is it the drill? Because that is pretty much ready." 

"There's something I wanted to build and..." Peridot stopped for a second, blushing. "I require your assistance with disassembling a broken gem ship and transferring the parts to the "barn". Of course, you are not obligated to do it." 

"Stars, I'm sorry if my tone implied that I didn't want to help you. I was just surprised you wanted my help. How about we do it now, since we are both available?" 

It was settled. With a quick goodbye to Amethyst, they both teleported away. 

* * *

It was kind of a dump, if Peridot had to be honest. Thousands of years had certainly taken their toll on the once functional ship. As of now, it was little more than a piece of intergalactic thrash. Well, at least some things still worked, even though it looked more like a greenhouse than an actual ship. 

They already knew where the control room was located, so it didn't take very long for them to get there. The atmosphere between Pearl and Peridot was very uncomfortable. Part of it was because the last time they'd been in this ship, they were still enemies. The green gem knew that their relationship was strained at best, especially after the whole robot competition thing. Who knew that victory could taste so bitter? 

They quickly found the ship's control panel, and started dismantling it, with the help of Peridot's tools. To try and decrease the tension between the two, Peridot began to make small talk, that sounded like more tiny fragments of conversation that popped up while they were working. 

"So… How's Steven?" Asked her, as that was one of the only topics that they actually had in common. 

"He's fine." Responded Pearl, without looking at Peridot. 

*** 

"Have you ever heard of Iron Man?" At that, the white gem looked up, confused: 

"Who?" 

"Never mind." The two continued working. 

*** 

"FUCK!" The green gem yelled, after accidentally dropping her hammer, which hit her foot hard and made her jump around the control room holding her injured foot. "You motherfucking shitbag of a CLOD!" She stepped on the hammer to avenge her fallen body part. 

"Where did you even learn these words?" Pearl was really confused, because she was sure there weren't any books of inappropriate nature in the barn, She had taken them out when she was trying to build a spaceship with Steven a while ago (just to be safe). 

"The internet." 

"What is 'The Internet'?" 

"... I have so much to show you." 

*** 

After quite some time, surprisingly, Pearl was the one that started the conversation. 

"Peridot?" She said, trying to catch the other gem's attention. Peridot looked up: 

"Yes?" 

"Why did you ask for my help?" Pearl asked. "I mean, why me, instead of Garnet, Amethyst or Steven?" 

"Because..." Peridot couldn't find the words to explain. "You were the one that had the most knowledge about ancient gem technology. And I would like to… Apologize." 

"Apologize? For what?" 

"For the attitude I had towards you in the past. I know it is not an acceptable justification, but at the time, all the knowledge I had came from Homeworld, which was why I acted in such an unpleasant manner." 

"It's fine, Peridot. I already forgav-" 

"But it's not! I basically ridiculed you for being a slave! Now that I am aware of how messed up that is, I have to apologize, because this is not fine!" Peridot was almost yelling at that point, trying to make the other gem _understand_. 

Pearl was surprised, not only by the apology — that was, indeed genuine, she could tell — but by the sheer emotion that Peridot put into it. She smiled. 

"Well then, I accept your apology." Said Pearl, with a calm, but happy voice. They got back to work, none of them talking after that. 

The silence didn't feel so uncomfortable anymore. 

*** 

Some of the pieces were unusable — which explained why nothing worked right when Peridot tried to activate some of the ship's systems — but most of them were still intact. When Peridot found one of the ship's five energy cores under the control panel (and a functional one!), Peridot knew she struck gold. While it wasn't able to power a ship that big by itself, it was more than enough for her computer and whatever else she wanted to build. 

While the first layer of glass containing it was enormous, the core itself was pretty small, about the size of a particularly big apple. Its material was mostly unknown to the green gem staring at it, as only the diamonds and particularly high class scolecites (scientists of Homeworld, whose area of expertise was technology) had any idea of what it was made of. The core was astoundingly beautiful, with a deep blue color that shimmered in weak light of the ship. 

All its beauty was momentarily ruined by the containment glass shattering, courtesy of Peridot's hammer. 

Peridot turned around, with the core (encased in a crystal-like material, stronger than glass, that served as a second layer to protect the core) in hand, and looked at Pearl. The white gem shot a questioning look to Peridot, silently asking what the technician was holding. 

"That's an energy core, that was used to power this ship when it was still functional. I've never worked with ships this large before, and this core's shape is different from the ones we have, so I don't know much about it." She paused. "But it's clear that it still works." 

"How do you know that?" Asked Pearl. While she knew a lot about gem technology, being required to be beside her diamond at all times — along with her status as a pearl — kept a lot of information from her. 

"Look." Peridot shook the core in her hand a bit. The unknown material swirled lazily inside the containment crystal. When the green gem stopped shaking it, it started to glow. "See?" 

"See what?" 

"First of all, it's not solid, or solidifying. That actually tells a lot. I don't know a lot about the composition of it, but I do know it's a gas, that is being kept as a liquid by the pressure inside of the crystal. When it loses enough energy, it becomes liquid, and eventually solid. The fact that it's still fully liquid shows that it still has a lot of energy left." Peridot explained. 

"That's pretty amazing. How do you know it's a gas, though? Is it common knowledge for peridots?" The green gem laughed. 

"Not at all. We, Peridots, are little more than technicians for Homeworld. We know how things work so we can fix them, obviously, but the diamonds judged that we didn't need to know what they are made of. I know this because of something that happened once." She paused for a second, then started to tell Pearl what happened while they both worked. 

_It was a very busy cycle for some of the peridots of Yellow Diamond's court. A whole fleet worth of elite ships had just been built, and they were almost ready to be handed to gems of very high class. All of the ships were of remarkably high quality and all the available peridots were called to finish them — check for any imperfections or irregularities, install the communication systems, put the energy cores in their places, this kind of thing — a task given to them by Yellow Diamond herself._

_It was an extremely important mission with no room for mistakes whatsoever._

_Leading the peridots with an iron fist was a yellow agate, who was standing above all of them, inside a control room with a large window, with a sneer worthy of her gem kind, looking closely for any errors. Peridot — our peridot— couldn't help but notice how ugly she looked._

_The ship Peridot was working on was almost ready, the only thing left to do was to boot up all of the ship's systems and check if they were working. She quickly finished that, and found herself with nothing to do, so she started watching the other peridots work. The one that caught her attention was the one working on the smallest, but most important ship, that she knew the emerald that would receive it would call it "The Sun Incinerator" (that particular gem had been bragging about the ship for many cycles, going so far as to interrupt the peridots' work at random times to inquire about it)._

_That peridot was quite small, even for an Era 2 one, and had her gem on the side of her neck, which had a pentagonal shape. Her "name" was 7HX, if Peridot remembered correctly. She was walking down the bridge that led to the going-to-be Sun Incinerator, energy core in hand. Everything was going as expected._

_Peridot realized what was about to happen a moment before it did, and she became horrified._

_7HX's limb enhancer foot got caught on something, and she tripped. She dropped the core, but managed to catch it while it was still in the air. Unfortunately, the lack of guard-rails on the bridge was her doom. With a muffled scream, she fell down, desperately clutching the core as if her life depended on it (it did)._

_The bridge was very far from the ground. 7HX fell face first on the rock-hard floor, with a resounding bang that made all the other gems look at what happened. The peridot was mostly unharmed, as they were very resistant by design. The crystal protecting the core, however, was not. It shattered on impact, and, unlike what Peridot expected, what came out of it was not a liquid, but a gas. A gas that apparently did not react well with Homeworld's atmosphere. After a moment, it exploded._

_It was a big explosion, that destroyed a big part of the working station and took out four of the recently built elite ships. Almost every gem that was near the explosion was either badly damaged or vaporized. Surprisingly, 7HX was not only alive, but still in her physical form, even if a bit charred. Not for very long, however, as Yellow Agate, her face distorted with a thunderous expression, walked very slowly to the elevator, pressed a button, waited to get to the floor she wanted, and strode to where 7HX was. No one dared to move._

_She reached out to her gem — on her chest, a fact that she was very proud of — and pulled a large mace, which she quickly hit the peridot with, poofing her. Her gem clattered on the ground, and the agate picked it up. She quickly left, no doubt to report to her superior (namely Yellow Diamond herself) about 7HX's incompetence and its consequences. As Yellow Agate walked to the door, she looked very worried, almost scared._

_No one ever saw Peridot 7HX again. Or Yellow Agate 2FJ, for that matter._

"And that's how found out it's a gas. All the other gems that were there know, too. So Yellow Clod can suck it." Peridot finished, and looked around. "I think we have enough pieces. Can you help me take them back to the barn, please?" 

"Well, of course." Pearl let out a chuckle, and stored the parts they took within her gem. There was nothing left to do on the ship, so they both got up and left, talking all the way to the exit. The both of them warped away. 

When they arrived at the barn, Pearl took the machine parts out of her gem and put them neatly on the ground. She looked at the sky, and, upon seeing that she had spent far more time on that ship with Peridot than she expected to, said a quick goodbye to the green gem and warped back to the temple. As Peridot watched Pearl leave, she smiled. Things had went so much better than she thought it would. 

Peridot felt the same way she did when she apologized to Amethyst. Big. 

* * *

Fast forward a week, and everything was going smoothly. The Cluster, thankfully, showed no signs of emerging in the near future (and yes, Peridot was well aware that they should deal with it as soon as possible, but the sudden appearance of multiple corrupted gems six days ago had put a temporary stop to their plan). 

The best news, however, is that she had watched 8 more Marvel movies (Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of The Galaxy volumes 1 and 2, and Iron Man 3). Some were awesome, some were a lot less awesome, but hey, more Tony Stark! Peridot had taken a liking to the Guardians of The Galaxy — and Loki, for that matter — too. 

All of those movies gave Peridot just the best ideas ever. Energy certainly wasn't a problem, thanks to that absolutely amazing energy core she took from the gem ship. She started laughing evilly as she thought that. 

Oh, and she had finished the super computer (not being physically required to waste time sleeping was so useful). Actually, that's the first thing she did. The holographic, full HD screen was just _perfect_ to watch movies. She would probably show Steven that one day. 

She was also so close to finishing the AI… She had spent a lot of time cramming the hell out of human technology coding, using that newfound knowledge along with what she knew about gem technology to program the damn thing. That was very difficult, but, in the end, she managed to come up with something she was satisfied with. 

If that AI failed she would be _so_ pissed. 

It would be capable of learning, and with the enormous amount of information there was on the internet, the possibilities were endless (of course, Peridot would not just let it inside the internet from the get-go. She knew that things would most likely go very wrong if she did that). 

The only thing standing in the way of its completion was, oddly enough, its name. Peridot could not decide on a decent name for it. Her first idea was to name it after someone she knew. That would cause a lot of confusion though, since she knew like, five people. She also considered naming it after one of the diamonds as a joke, but figured that the poor AI didn't deserve that. 

She spent hours upon hours on baby names sites, and found nothing interesting. At all. She did find out that there were a lot of humans named "John", however, along with some pretty strange names. Who the hell decided to name their child after a fruit? 

After a week, she decided to call it JARVIS. Yes, that would do. 

After that, the only things were to do was to find a voice for it (that was surprisingly easy. Once again, Peridot was impressed with the amount of things the internet had to offer) and to start it up. The difficult thing about this was to create an environment controlled enough to make everything not go to shit when it got turned on, but at the same time one that would allow it to learn and grow on its own. 

In the end, she settled for a variation of parental control. Not that effective, but hopefully it would be enough. It would be eventually deactivated when she could be sure the AI wouldn't be destroyed or go insane. Mixing human and gem technology would be unpredictable enough on its own. She sighed, wished everything would go smoothly, and pressed the key that would activate her new assistant. For a moment, nothing happened. Then: 

"Hello, I am Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or JARVIS. How would you like me to assist you, Peridot Facet 2F5L Cut 5XG?" 

**Bonus: Peridot discovers social media**

Apparently, humans also used "The Internet" to communicate through multiple platforms. After she searched "Marvel" on the "Twitter", she quickly found a huge discussion about who was better between Iron Man and Captain America. After seeing that quite a lot of people were taking Captain America's side (she didn't know what on Homeworld was a "Team Cap", but she sure as hell was not siding with it), she decided to join the discussion. After she completed the necessary steps to create an account on the twitter — what even was the use of an email, with so many sites made specifically for communication at the humans' disposal — she started… Well, tweeting. 

That tweet started a whole discussion in the comment section, that gathered more than three thousand answers. Huh,she didn't expect that. All the notifications from the twitter were really annoying though.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me say it, I imagined so many possibilities for the "let's steal parts from old Homeworld ships" part. Some of them: Steven and Peridot go together, Peri and Amethyst go (and Amethyst shapeshifts into a shopping cart), Garnet goes with Peri, everyone team up, Pearl and Peridot end up at the moon base, and so many others. It was kinda difficult to choose, to be honest.
> 
> The Cluster and Malachite episodes stay mostly the same in this fic. The next chapter is going to be hard to write, because of a very problematic character for this story: Lapis Lazuli. The thing is, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her. Spoiler: This fic will not be a Lapidot. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! If you liked/disliked something in particular, let me know in the comments! Bye bye!


End file.
